Step 1 – In your own teaching, in what ways do you:
• facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity
Activating students’ schemata; connecting to their reality or interests (e.g. using focus questions- that have no right answer, are related to the topic, connect to students lives, involve thinking and speculating)
Promoting reflective observation; experimentation and problem solving (not spoon feeding information)
Applying what they learn to their lives and the present (meaningful learning)
Working in groups/pairs (collaborative/cooperative work because learning is a social act, we learn from one another and by accommodating and rearranging knowledge)
Through project work that caters for different intelligences or learning styles, and allowing students a choice, e.g. write an essay on…; draw a comic strip illustrating a scene in a play or story; choose the music for a scene and justify your choice; make a video on….; find a painting that best depicts….; make a model/collage/….
Through the use of formative evaluation, involving students in their own evaluation and learning process, which also helps me reflect on my teaching (Portfolios work well); peer evaluation
Promoting ‘risk taking’, we learn by making mistakes and through trial and error
Not always grading (A vs C+ etc.) , but rather rating (Excellent, Good, Well done, Needs Improvement)
Not always correcting ( I goed to school by bus yesterday.), but guiding or responding (Careful with verb tense.)
Promoting critical thinking and independent self-paced learning
What I hear, I forget.
What I hear, see, and ask questions about, I begin to understand.
When I hear, see, discuss, and do, I acquire knowledge and skills.
What I teach to another, I master.
Silberman, M (1996) “Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject”, USA:Allyn & Bacon
• design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments
In this respect, I would say very little; I only just started to use Blackboard this last term. However, I did develop several tasks that combined Blackboard; Internet research, digital library; ‘you tube’, Power Point presentations and video). I have found Internet to be an invaluable tool in many ways. For example, while doing “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” , by Wordsworth, we searched for paintings to illustrate the kind of landscape described, and students read and voted for the one they felt best depicted what the author described in the poem; we found songs about people’s hometown (e.g. Bruce Springsteen’s song “My Hometown”), and compared the feelings conveyed in both texts; we listened to the rap version of Wordsworth’s poem “Daffodil’s” (at first students did not know it was a poem); etc. etc.
• model digital-age work and learning;
According to my students yes, because I have managed to solve their problems such as: not being able to access or download stuff (cookies, pop up and other problems); I at least know what technologies are available (thanks in part to what I am learning at MET); the fact that I do know my way around certain tools they use, e.g. the Macmillan English Campus; they know I’m in MET; and all my lessons are somehow or another linked to the use of technologies, be it Power Point, something I found on the web etc.
• promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility; and
Yes, by insisting they site sources and avoid plagiarism; and by setting an example: e.g. I paid for a legal download of a short film, even though it was available in three parts on ‘you tube’. I must sad, however, that I am a bit confused by this and what one can and cannot use on a Blackboard course. If it is enough to just cite the source and author of a picture or other texts that are often freely available online. I would love some info on this.
• engage in professional growth and leadership?
Not at all, I definitely need to work on this and the above, too.
Step 2 – How can ETEC 565 help you to become a digital-age teaching professional? What are the key skills and approaches that you feel you need to develop to meet your goals?
From what I see of the schedule, my concerns and needs will be met in this course because we will be looking at: copyright issues and a series of options like LMS; content management systems; social networks, assessment and communications tools; some of which I have perhaps come across, but in a self-taught manner and without understanding some of its theoretical framework. Having said this, though, I don’t think my path has been all bad, because in a way I have followed a ‘practice before theory’ approach, or an ‘experiential learning cycle’. I most definitely started with ‘concrete experience’ and a process of ‘reflective observation’; now with this course I will hopefully be able to finish the cycle by ‘abstract conceptualization’ (problem solving) and ‘active experimentation’ (practical application); but based on new acquired knowledge. The fact that we have to ‘create’ and apply what we learn in this course, that we get to be on the side of the learner, and that we can learn from one another, I feel it creates the perfect mix for internalizing the knowledge and experience I need towards starting on the road of ‘’digital age teaching’; not so much of becoming a professional. I think one can never finish learning to be a teacher or becoming a professional; I believe very much in the reflective model of professional competence being achieved by a constant process of reflection (Wallace M. J. (1991) “Educating foreign language teachers: A reflective approach”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
“… when we are no longer learning, we no longer teach, because we have lost the power to
exemplify what it means to be intellectually active.”
Fried, R. L. (1995) “The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide”, Boston: Beacon Press.